Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1887-08-13
MARTINsBURG, WA. SATURDAY, AUGUST 49, 1887.


taline character; rendered SO by
atmospheric, aqueous and igneous
agencies. l was born when the ter
rifle contest between fire and water
was being carried on, as to which
should have supremacy on the
earth's crust, and was million
years old when either the first
radiated animal or plant came into
existence. I saw the first form of
molluscous life reposing upon the
bed of the silurian ocean, admired
million years afterwards the higher
forms of the placoidal, ganoidal and
heterocercal fishes, Of the Devonian
seas--and was in part, with my
younger qualification of limestone
and shales a factor in pressing down
the luxuriant and plentiful plants OF
the carboniferous formation to pro-
duce coal, that higher organisms
like you might utilize it for your
comfort and civilization. / witness.
ed the birth of all the myriad forms
Of reptilian life from the permian to
the cretaceOns period--monsters that
would have frightened BaInnm had
he seen them-some of them as the
pterodactyle, flying reptlles) that
would have pounced upon him and
made breakfast of him in double
quick. Strage and gigantic forms
tenanted the old world then, on
land, in the ocean and atmosphere
They have all passed away, and
higher forms of animal and vegeta
BILE. life, suited to the change Of
environment, baye succeeded; and
but for a few of their fossils entcmb
ed and preserved in the rocks, ina
lures record,) no one would have
ever known or heard of their exis
tence.'
I" Although your statement seems
very straightforward, certainly in
teresting, we do not understand how
you happened here. You have just
testified that you are a detached
portion of the metamorphic series Of
rock, and evidently not at home, not
it stu as the biologists would say
You are evidently stranger in q
strange land, or as expressed geo
logically in a deposit of drift OIL
diluvium, and thus came here mil
lions of years after your first ap
pearance upon earth. Please give
us your testimony now as to how
you got here.'
"tMy friends, the answer to your
question is one on which geologistS
are divided, but should not be, and
the solution of it brings up the uni
versal law of radiation, secular re
frigeration and consequent contrac
ton, applicable not only to our solar
system, but to the worlds in space
Long, long ago, during che miocent
of the tertiary, the warm ocean cur
rent, known as the Gulf Stream, die
not run as now, (there being then
no Cuba nor Florida but up a con
tlnuous ocean, over what now forms
the Mississippi Valley, coursine
enthusiastically towards Greenland
Do you doubt this statement? Their
in the language of your declaration
Of independence, let facts be sub
mitted to a candid world. In the
miocene beds of Northern Green.
land, (Which division of the tertiary
preceded the pli0cene or glacial per
iod,) the fir, poplar, beech and Other
forest trees have been discovered
by Professor Heer, but the most
common one seems to have beer
allied to the great red wood of Cali
fornia, which has diameter O
twenty feet and altitude of nearl,
three hundred. These trees hav,
been found rooted in the soil OF
which they grew, and no other con
clusion can be drawn but that thu
ice bound and Recovered Green
land of today has experienced ;
great climatal change since sucl
trees flourished there. Examine
too. those upper cretacious bed
upon the sides of the Rocky Noun
tains, occupying SUBMITS 5000 fee
above the level of the plane an,
1000 feet above sea.level. This up
lift, the result of seismic action, tn
resultant OF cooling globe such a
ours is, was in part gradual, in par
sudden. By the active upheayin,
process the greater portion of Nortl
America as you now see it was re
claimed from the ocean, the waite
having retreated to the valleys Q
the ocean thus deepened by con
traction Of the earth's crust. Thi
partially gradual and partly suddel
change in elevatory movement, an,
consequent change of the warm gul
stream in its course, brought on al
/ intense cold, known as the glacia
period OF the worlds long past hi.
tory. British America, and of cours